Photo Flash: Kumu Kahua's IT'S ALL RELATIVE

Kumu Kahua Theatre ends its 40th-anniversary season with a bang. Opening on May 26 is a new play from Edward Sakamoto, one of Hawai‘i's most notable-and recognizable-theater voices. He returns with It's All Relative, a humorous exploration of marriage, identity and fading dreams told through three generations of an O‘ahu family in 1995.

The multilayered work started with just two words, says Sakamoto. "When I write plays, they come for different reasons and from different sources of inspiration. This particular play came from a minor incident. I met an elderly married woman in Honolulu, and I asked her, ‘Oh, how long have you been married?' And she replied in a somber tone, ‘Too long.' I didn't expect that, but she really meant it the way she said it."

When Sakamoto was looking for a plot a few years later, "what she said came back to me. Just those two words-‘too long.' It started from that and developed into a multigenerational family play."

Sakamoto aims to portray the workings of a family, "the way that families can sometimes, through years of living together, run into emotional roadblocks that have to be worked out."

The Miyamotos look like a happy family, but as is usually the case in life, nothing is what it seems. Nissei couple Shiro and Kimi are approaching their golden anniversary-and they're hardly the picture of wedded bliss. Meanwhile, their son Dean is a high school teacher whose aspirations of being a Shakespeare-immersed college dean have regretfully dimmed, and daughter Flo is a middle-aged manhunter. Meanwhile Dean's three daughters-Rosie, Bella and Viola-turn to pidgin English, cosmetic surgery and unlikely boyfriends in efforts to express themselves.

When asked if, after more than 40 years in Los Angeles, Hawai‘i continues to be his muse, Sakamoto replied: "Yes. And also Kumu Kahua is a source of inspiration for me. It's so important. I'm hoping people will help keep the theater alive. If there was no Kumu Kahua, I wouldn't be writing as many Hawai‘i plays. I'm serious."

Directing the play is Sakamoto's longtime collaborator James A. Nakamoto. "I like the way that Ed creates family relationships and uses them to tell a story," says Nakamoto. "This play goes back to his family kind of comedic drama, except that it's a darker piece. And we have a wonderful cast-it's going to gel together very nicely."

In the strong cast of Kumu Kahua veterans and newcomers are Lacey Chu, Jessica Kauhane, Eric Manke, Nani Morita, Valerie Falle, Allan Okubo, Marcus Oshiro, Dann Seki, Diana Wan, and Jodie Yamada.

It's All Relative is being sponsored by The Iolani Class of '58, Edward Sakamoto's class.
Tickets can be reserved in advance by calling the Kumu Kahua Theatre box office at 536-4441, Mondays to Fridays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
PLAY SCHEDULE:
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.:
May 26, 27, 28
June 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25

Sundays at 2 p.m.:
May 29; June 5, 12, 19, *26
*American Sign Language interpretation available upon request

About the playwright
Edward Sakamoto has written 16 plays, 11 of which have Hawai‘i themes, and 14 of which have been produced by Kumu Kahua Theatre. His plays have also been produced in Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, and San Francisco. University of Hawai‘i Press published Hawai‘i No Ka Oi: The Kamiya Family Trilogy in 1995, and Aloha Las Vegas and Other Plays in 2000-the other plays being A‘ala Park and Stew Rice. He received Hollywood Dramalogue Awards for Stew Rice and Chikamatsu's Forest, and local HSTC Best Original Play Po‘okela Awards for Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire and for Aloha Las Vegas during its first production in 1992. Chikamatsu's Forest was staged Off Off Broadway in 1995 by the Blue Heron Theatre. Sakamoto received the Hawai‘i Award for Literature in 1997. The most recent KKT production of a Sakamoto play was the world premiere of Obake in 2003. Sakamoto has also been the recipient of a Rockefeller American Playwrights-in-Residence Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. Born and raised in Honolulu, Sakamoto has made the Los Angeles area his home since 1966. He was a copyeditor at the Los Angeles Times for 20 years.

About the director
James A. Nakamoto started drama programs at McKinley High School and Wai‘anae Intermediate High. He has a BA in Public Relations, and has extensive directing credits here and on the mainland. For KKT he will be remembered especially for directing many productions of Ed Sakamoto's plays, including Stew Rice (the 1995 smash hit revival), Obake, Dead of Night, Aloha Las Vegas (the 1992 premiere at Tenney Theatre), Taste of Kona Coffee, A‘ala Park, and Life of the Land. He also directed Stew Rice for East-West Players in Los Angeles, and Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire at the Blaisdell Center, Honolulu, and at the Japan America Theatre, Los Angeles. He was awarded special grants to study theater at Iowa University and Northwestern. For many years, Jim was on the Board at KKT and we welcome him back in the director's chair for It's All Relative.

About Kumu Kahua Theatre
For 40 years, Kumu Kahua Theatre has been telling Hawai‘i's story through plays about these islands, its people, its cultures and contemporary life. Kumu Kahua's intimate 100-seat playhouse puts audiences at the heart of the action and with more than 200 plays to its credit, the theater's artistic and technical experience attracts some of Hawai‘i's most talented playwrights, actors, directors, designers and other theatre artists. The audience at Kumu Kahua is treated to the unique experience of hearing their voice on stage and seeing their lives unfold in the action of the play.

Kumu Kahua productions are made possible with support from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, celebrating more than thirty years of culture and the arts in Hawai‘i, and the National Endowment for the Arts; The Annenberg Foundation; Paid for in part by the taxpayers of the City & County of Honolulu; the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts; Iolani Class of '58; and Foundations, Businesses and Patrons

Photo Credit: Pacific Light Studios

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